


Knots

by languageintostillair



Series: Strings [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Light Angst, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Smut, but even more briefly discussed than in Jaime's POV, or rather colleagues who refuse to talk about their feelings, the companion piece that no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:49:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27134123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageintostillair/pseuds/languageintostillair
Summary: That night—it was still goodbye for good, wasn’t it? She’d said goodbye like she’d planned, and it just so happened that he’d fucked her in between that goodbye and her departure. So what? She can still think of it as goodbye-for-good when they cross paths in the office, while they exchange nothing more than a wave or a nod of the head, can’t she?She can’t. She can barely look him in the eye. It was a one-time thing—a drunken, momentary madness—and she doesn’t want him to know she might want it to happen again.(Or, five times Brienne runs, and the one time she doesn’t—with a twist.Strings, from Brienne's POV.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Strings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980535
Comments: 72
Kudos: 182





	Knots

**Author's Note:**

> Well, my hiatus didn’t last very long. Technically, I suppose this fic should be able to stand on its own, though I did write it assuming the reader already knows what happens in _Strings_ , so some of it might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read Jaime’s POV.

* * *

**【1】**

There is only one explanation.

There is only one explanation that Brienne Tarth can think of for what happened last night. There is no other reason why Jaime Lannister would—

Why Jaime Lannister had…

(The way he’d gasped her name—)

It had to be the alcohol—the entire bottle of Dornish red that they’d downed that evening, the one he’d claimed was his most expensive. If Jaime hadn’t lied, then he’d wasted it on _her_ , someone who couldn’t tell the difference between a five-dragon wine and a five-hundred-dragon one. He already knew that she couldn’t. He knew because on one of those nights when it seemed they would never discover the truth about Sansa Stark—when it seemed that the girl would remain missing, that Brienne’s story would merely be about all the dots she couldn’t seem to connect—he’d opened multiple bottles from his collection, and asked her to guess their prices based on no more than a sip or two. Because it would take their mind off things, he said. Because her ignorance amused him, she thought. Because that is the type of game a man can play when his family owns half of King’s Landing, a half that includes the newspaper that employs both him _and_ Brienne, the woman he was supposed to keep away from any nasty Lannister secrets. Like whether his nephew had anything to do with the mysterious disappearance of a girl he’d once dated.

He hadn’t kept her away from those secrets. Instead, he’d ushered her straight into their path, and when that proved to be a dead end—at least, as far as Sansa Stark’s whereabouts were concerned—Jaime had continued by her side as their investigation veered away from his family. He’d told her secrets of his own, too, things that had no real connection to Sansa. He’d confessed them as if he was searching for some kind of redemption from _her_ , of all people; as if he couldn’t help but tell her truths he couldn’t share with anyone else. She’d never understood this impulse of his—why _her_ , why waste expensive wines and long-buried secrets on _her_?—but she’d listened to him anyway. She’d listened to him as he told her the truth behind his exposé on Aerys Targaryen, the story from fifteen—no, _seventeen_ years ago that had earned Jaime so much infamy. An exceptional journalist, but still a Lannister, still Tywin Lannister’s son, to be used and manipulated to take down Lannister enemies. Jaime seemed to think she despised him for his part in the controversy—the questionable, unethical things people said he did to get his hands on the necessary information; how all of that, and his father’s actions after, had tainted what is otherwise one of his best stories—and perhaps she did despise him, on some level. But her initial hostility wasn’t just because of the Targaryen story. Jaime was, after all, playing nanny, or gatekeeper, or whatever the hell it was that his father wanted him to do by pairing him with her. He was—still is—arrogant, and infuriating, and determined to annoy her at every turn.

And he is beautiful. Devastatingly, soul-crushingly beautiful. The kind of beauty that makes her want to curse and swear at her own sorry reflection in the mirror, at the sheer unfairness of the world, and then feel ashamed after for being exactly the kind of superficial she wishes everyone else wouldn’t be.

It wasn’t easy to be friendly with this beautiful man. At times, it had felt almost _dangerous_. More than once, she’d wished Jaime wasn’t so brilliant. She’d wished they hadn’t worked so well together all these months. She’d wished he would call her by her name instead of ‘rookie’, and if he absolutely had to address her in that way, then she wished he wouldn’t do so with a smirk that looked almost affectionate. She’d _definitely_ wished he didn’t tell her his secrets, about Aerys Targaryen, about his godsforsaken relationship with his damn _sister_ (she’d told herself she’d gotten over that, but had she _really_?). And now, she wishes he hadn’t invited her over to his apartment to consume any alcohol at all, no matter the price of the bottle. No matter if it was just a game.

Maybe she was a game he could play too.

(A game of strength—he’d held her _by her thighs against the door_ —she’d panicked and clutched at his shoulders and resisted, because Jaime Lannister fucking her was mortifying enough without him attempting to support her weight and failing; he’d responded, not by releasing her, but by digging his fingertips into her flesh and pushing her body back against the wood like it was _nothing_ , and it wasn’t just his hands on her thighs, or the muscles straining in his arms—it was also his lips on her lips—his chest compressing hers—his hips thrusting into her with his gods-damned cock between them—

 _Come for me_ , he’d asked, and she’d so willingly complied.)

Last night should have ended like she’d planned. It should have _started_ like she’d planned. She was about to head home, put a silly movie on, then eat an entire tub of ice cream while pretending that bad things didn’t happen to girls like Sansa Stark. Pretending that she lived in a world where she wouldn’t have to write stories—well-received or not—about all those bad things. Instead, Jaime had said:

_Come over, and you can be as miserable as you like._

She’d agreed, and regretted it almost immediately. On the way to his apartment, she’d resolved that this would be the night she would say goodbye for good. She’d been thinking about it in the past weeks, the closer they got to the truth and the closer she felt to Jaime. Last night should have been as good a time as any other. There was no more story to work on, and there will be no more reason to accept these invitations from Jaime. They would simply be colleagues. Safe, uncomplicated colleagues.

 _I should get going_ , she’d said, when the bottle and their glasses were empty. She hadn’t been miserable at all, with Jaime, and she really should say goodbye for good.

 _So soon?_ he asked.

 _It’s…_ She looked at her phone, then lifted the screen towards him. _Past eleven._

He nodded. _Oh._

She got up then, slung her bag over her shoulder, reminded herself to tell him goodbye for good. _Good… night_ , she’d mumbled at first, changing the second syllable at the last moment. She took a deep breath, looked him in the eye and said:

_Bye, Jaime._

Then—

Then her back was against the door. And his lips were on hers. She’d been shocked at first, of course she had. But then her bag slipped down her shoulder and onto the ground, and her hair came loose from her ponytail, and Jaime was pressed up against her, and she could feel him through her trousers and his, and then he was trying to get those trousers off, hers and his, and she was _helping_ him—

It made her realise something. All those times she’d made all those wishes, wishes about the kind of man he is and the kind of things he’d say and do, what she really wanted to wish for was—

( _Brienne._

 _Come for me._ )

Last night should have ended like she’d planned. She should have walked out the door knowing it would be for the last time. She would have cherished the memory of this final wine-soaked evening spent with Jaime, and she would have remembered it fondly when they crossed paths in the office, exchanging nothing more than a wave or a nod of the head.

Perhaps what happened didn’t have to change her plans. When she finally escaped through his front door—the door against which he’d just _fucked her_ —it could still have been for the last time. The fact that he’d been inside her didn’t change that goodbye-for-good, and there was nothing to indicate that it might. It was a momentary madness, that was all. A drunken, momentary madness, not to be repeated. She’d said goodbye, and she will remember the evening fondly, just as she’d planned.

But when she woke up this morning—woke up from a dream about Jaime—it wasn’t fondness that coloured her memories.

In the bathroom, she takes off her underwear at the sink, and scrubs it hard beneath the running water.

* * *

**【2】**

She hates that he stops calling her ‘rookie’.

She hated that he called her that, and now she hates that he doesn’t, because it only makes it clear that something changed between them. She could hear that change in the one and only time he called her ‘rookie’ after that night, in the way his voice had cracked as he said it. She could see it in his face as he squeezed his eyes shut and took his lips between his teeth. ‘Rookie’ had rolled off his tongue so easily all those times before; now, it puts a furrow between his brows instead of a smirk on his lips.

She doesn’t want cracked voices, or squeezed-shut eyes, or furrowed brows. She doesn’t want change. She just wants to put everything behind her, and pretend she doesn’t think of how he held her against the door when she touches herself at night.

(She’d never needed to touch herself this often. The urge used to come to her once in a while—weeks could go by without even so much as a flicker of it—but now she feels it, acutely, almost every night. She yields to it again and again, yet each peak brings next to no relief. It only reminds her that her fingers, her imagination, are no more than a poor substitute. It only reminds her of how effortlessly she’d come that night. Because it was Jaime inside her; because it was his breath on her neck; because he’d asked her to, for his sake.)

That night—it was still goodbye for good, wasn’t it? She’d said goodbye like she’d planned, and it just so happened that he’d fucked her in between that goodbye and her departure. So what? She can still think of it as goodbye-for-good when they cross paths in the office, while they exchange nothing more than a wave or a nod of the head, can’t she?

She can’t. She can barely look him in the eye. It was a one-time thing—a drunken, momentary madness—and she doesn’t want him to know she might want it to happen again. Does she want it to? She can’t be sure. The mere thought of fucking him, even just once more, fills her with an indescribable dread. The mere thought of him knowing—him saying no—

Hells, he hadn’t even seen her _naked_.

Maybe it’ll get better as time passes. A few days. A week. Two weeks, with Jaime out of the office most of that time, so she won’t have to feel the blood rushing to her cheeks whenever she sees him around. Except the blood rushes to her cheeks whenever she _thinks_ of him, which is too often, which is always. But maybe it’ll get better after three weeks. Maybe she can reason her way out of this mess. Yes, Jaime is beautiful; yes, she works well with him; yes, he tells her his secrets; yes, he’d fucked her once. All of those things are true, but so are these: he’s twelve years older than her; he’d been in a years-long relationship with his _sister_ ; just because he’d fucked her once, after drinking half a bottle of Dornish red, doesn’t mean he’ll want to fuck her again. It was just one night. A drunken, momentary madness.

(So what if he’s forty to her twenty-eight? They’re both adults, aren’t they? He hadn’t manipulated her into anything, and most of the time, she didn’t feel like the gulf between them was particularly huge. And hadn’t he told her things were over between him and his sister, had been for years, and that he knew it was fucked up and he wasn’t trying to make any excuses for it? Hadn’t she seen that for herself, from the way Jaime interacted with Cersei? Couldn’t she look at Joffrey and know that as much as he looked like Jaime, they were nothing more than uncle and nephew?

Why is she considering these questions at all, if all she wanted to do was pretend that night never happened? Would never happen again?)

 _Fuck._ This is worse than Renly. So much worse.

Brienne had met Renly Baratheon in her first year at university, while pitching ideas to the student newspaper; he was in his third year, and one of the deputy editors. Gods, he was nice to her—so nice. Enthusiastic about her writing, in a way that none of her peers had ever been. When he was made editor-in-chief—inevitable, everyone knew—he handpicked _her_ to join his editorial team. _I want you to be a part of this with me_ , he’d told her. _I fought for you._ The words had sent chills down her spine, but then again, so had every word he’d ever said to her. So had every single time he’d come to her for advice. He trusted her judgment, though she was two years younger and had barely any experience beyond single-handedly putting together a high school newspaper that nobody ever cared to read.

She felt so special, back then. Renly made her feel special, and she couldn’t tear herself from his orbit even when she knew, for certain, that he would never return her feelings.

Still, this is worse than Renly. Renly had never touched her beyond a hand on her shoulder, or her arm. Renly had never desired her, _could_ never desire her. She’d found out when she saw him kissing Loras at a party, and left soon after. It had hurt, and she’d cried that night, and moped for weeks, and could still feel a stab to her heart whenever she saw them together, months or years later. She even felt a ghost of that stab when she last had lunch with them about a year ago. But at least there was a kind of—of _finality_ , to Renly. An impossibility. _I cannot be desired by the person I desire._

Jaime had desired her, once. Once is one too many times. Once is all she can think about whenever she catches him looking at her, whenever she dares to think he might have the same expression on his face that he had that night, just before he’d pushed her against the door and kissed her.

No. It isn’t that Jaime had desired her, or that she’d had a taste of that desire. What makes it so much worse is the desire that had been awoken in _her_. Her feelings for Renly had burned in her chest, but it had burned with a sort of—well, _innocence_ , is the best and worst word she can think of. The truth is, she had never desired him. Not if desire feels like _this_.

She desires Jaime, and she can no longer forget it, or repress it, or push it away with a goodbye-for-good.

Three weeks isn’t time enough for that.

She’d never told Jaime about Renly. Not that there was any obligation to do so, but he’d told her about Aerys Targaryen, and about Cersei, so she sometimes wondered if she should return the favour. She could never be so free with her secrets, though. Especially not when the world is so fucking small that the man she’d had a crush on at university could also be the youngest brother of the man who’d married the woman who is not only the sister of the man who’d fucked Brienne against a door three weeks ago, but the sister with whom he’d—

Her phone lights up with a text.

With a text from _Jaime_.

 _22:58_ , her phone protests.

Her hand trembles as she picks up the phone, and reads those two words.

**Come over.**

After three weeks of barely speaking, he asks her to **come over.** At this time of the night. As if everything was just as simple as that.

She wants to put her phone in a shoebox, stuff it in the corner of her closet, and throw every single piece of clothing that she owns on top of it. She wants to throw it out the window onto the street below, and let the cars run over it. She wants to flush it down the toilet so she won’t be tempted to reply to him at all.

She contemplates all these options for the next eighteen minutes. Then—impulsively—she unlocks her phone, and types:

**What for?**

Within seconds, she receives:

**You know what for.**

She does.

Forty-one minutes later, she’s on the ground floor of his apartment building, staring at the intercom.

Six minutes after that, she’s sitting on his kitchen island, naked, with his head between her thighs.

(He’d stripped her bare, seen all of her—every freckle and flaw—and he’d still buried his head between her thighs.)

She’d dreamed of this. Multiple times over the past three weeks. She hadn’t known what it felt like until now—it’s her first time being pleasured in this way—but she’d dreamed of it anyway. Gods, it’s _so much better_ than her dreams. It’s so much better than her fingers, and her imagination, and every pitiful orgasm over the last three weeks _put together_. It’s better even with just the sensation of his tongue, his lips; even though she isn’t anywhere close to—

 _Fuck_. How did that—

That had come out of _nowhere._

She struggles to catch her breath, tugs hard on Jaime’s hair as she gasps. How could it have—

He isn’t stopping. She wants to concentrate, now; she wants to feel the next one build, and swell—not too soon, not too quickly—she wants to commit everything to memory. It might be the first, and last time that she’s pleasured in this way. His fingers are inside— _gods_ , what good are her own fingers when she could have his, when she could have his mouth on her clit at the same time? What poor substitute will she find for his tongue slipping between her folds, wet; for the scrape of his beard on the insides of her thighs?

 _Jaime,_ she hears, _ah—I’m coming_. Who’d said that? Her? It must be her, because she _is_ coming. Shaking. Falling apart. Is she the type of person to say things like that? Is she the type of person to say, _fuck me_? Is she the type of person to say, _I want you inside me_?

She is. She is when she’s with Jaime.

Afterwards—after she’s had him inside her, _fuck_ , why did she come here at all?—Brienne sits up from his bed.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

She looks back at him, though she doesn’t meet his eyes. “Home.”

“It’s late.”

She turns away. “I’ll be fine. I drove.”

“Stay. We can fuck till morning.”

_Can we? Should we?_

She stands. “We have work in the morning.”

“So?”

Something goes cold inside her. “Jaime,” she says, trying to keep the tremors out of her voice. “I—I don’t think this is a good idea.” _Once is a mistake. Twice is—_

“Why not?”

She wraps her arms around herself, pointlessly, suddenly conscious of her meagre breasts. He’d seen them already; held them in his palms; took her nipples in his mouth. He hadn’t seemed bothered by their size when he did all of these things. Still, she wraps her arms even tighter, and wishes she hadn’t left all her clothes on the floor of his kitchen. “It could get— _messy_ ,” she warns him, and herself at the same time.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says. “There doesn’t need to be any—any _strings._ ”

There it is. The rules of the game, laid bare. No strings; no consequences. Just as there were no real consequences to him opening all those bottles of wine for her, on a night so long ago, and less different from this one than might be assumed. Her ignorance had amused him, then; perhaps it amuses him now. Distantly, she hears him continue with: _The sex is—it’s really good, isn’t it?_

She closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. “Yeah. It’s good.” She will admit that, even if it’s out of ignorance.

“Good. I want to do this again. With you.”

 _No. Yes. No._ “Jaime—”

“Please.”

She should warn him again. “When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll regret it,” she says.

“Why would I do that?”

_Doesn’t he know why? Will I have to spread my arms and show him all the reasons?_

“At least—” Jaime says, when she doesn’t speak, “will you at least consider it?”

She looks at the ground, towards her feet. She flexes her toes up, then down again, gripping them into the floor. “Alright,” she whispers, without really meaning to. She’d meant to say _no_ , and instead…

On her way out of his bedroom, she lingers in the doorway for a while, her hand on the doorknob. It isn’t because she’s thinking of staying, though he’d asked; she only does it to steady herself, to ready herself for her another escape. Painfully, she walks towards the pile of clothes on the kitchen floor, and puts all of hers back on, piece by useless piece.

She doesn’t have to look back to know that Jaime is watching her all the while.

* * *

**【3】**

Hyle Hunt is a mistake.

He’d been a mistake back in university—Brienne might have thought him a mistake even if he hadn’t slept with her for the reason she discovered later—and he’s still a mistake now.

She hadn’t expected to see him again after all these years. It was only on her first day at the _Times_ that she found out Hyle was working there too, and had been for the past year. She genuinely didn’t know beforehand; if she’d come across his name in a byline or two, then it hadn’t made a mark on her memory. She’d tensed when they first made eye contact—Hyle was, at that point, the only man she’d ever slept with—and so had he. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, though. She’d put all of it behind her, really. The first few months at the _Times_ , they simply avoided each other, and she was perfectly content with that arrangement.

Then, he just had to address it. He just had to corner her one day and _apologise_ to her. What use was _that_? What happened back then, happened—he’d courted Brienne the Beauty, slept with her once, enough to win that stupid bet—and saying sorry changes nothing. She’d slipped past him, refused to dignify his apology with any response, resolved not to think about how utterly stupid it was of her to let him into her bed.

But he’d gone on to corner her three more times. She’d slipped away all those times, but the expectation of yet another encounter was putting her on edge. So, the fifth time, she accepted his apology. More out of helplessness than anything.

After that, it was fine. They were civil to each other, and that was fine.

Until he started asking her out.

She’d barely registered it when it first happened. He’d approached her sometime in the week after her story about Sansa had been published, which was also the week after Jaime had first fucked her, which meant she was in a daze and would continue to be for quite some time after that.

_No._

_No._

_I’m flattered, Hyle_ —she wasn’t— _but no._

 _Is there someone else?_ he’d asked after his fourth attempt. She should have said _yes_ ; perhaps it might have stopped him from asking. But a _no_ fell from her lips before she even knew what she was saying.

That night, for the first time, she is the one to text Jaime to ask. They’d been sleeping with each other regularly for about a month by then. A month ago, she was still considering his proposal— _there doesn’t need to be any strings_ —and hadn’t made a decision one way or the other when he’d next texted her to **come over**.

That was all it took. One text, and her decision was made. Then it was happening twice a week, sometimes more, always at his place, always by his request.

Until she told Hyle that there wasn’t someone else.

 **Can I come over?** she’d asked that night. Jaime—who’d sent her a picture of his cock two days before, which made her realise she isn’t as opposed to that practice as she might have thought—said **yes** , of course. An hour later, they were fucking on his couch. And on the floor next to it. And on his bed after that.

It was difficult to leave, that night. But she had to, or she would have had to face the fact that she’d lied to Hyle Hunt that afternoon.

(In a way, though, she hadn’t lied. Jaime is Jaime. Jaime who fucks her, whom she fucks when she’s in the mood to. He isn’t an ‘else’ to anyone, especially not Hyle Hunt.)

It truly surprised her when she finally said yes to Hyle. Really, it did, and she couldn’t understand what had triggered it. Okay, so it was the two-month anniversary of this… _arrangement_ with Jaime. Yes, she was keeping track of it; yes, it was pathetic. It’d been almost three months since he’d first fucked her, too. How long could it possibly go on? How long before Jaime would move on? Because he _would_ move on, wouldn’t he? He’ll get bored of her, and any day now he’ll find someone else more beautiful and fuckable than her. Someone who isn’t taller, and heavier, and broader than he is, who doesn’t have a crooked nose or crooked teeth, who doesn’t have thick lips and thin hair and blotchy skin and freckles, freckles, freckles everywhere. Someone who looks like his—

(Why did he tell her about his _sister_?)

Maybe Jaime was already sleeping with a beautiful and fuckable person, on the nights he doesn’t ask her to **come over**. Brienne told herself to get used to the idea, just in case. In a matter of days, or weeks, or months, he’ll tell her that they’re better off as friends, and he’ll want things to go back to the way they were, and she’ll nod and say _alright_.

No strings—that was what she’d agreed to.

So she said yes to Hyle, on the two-month anniversary of her arrangement with Jaime. So she went on one date. So she thought the date was _fine_ , and so she said yes to a second. But she hadn’t agreed to two dates because she thought Hyle would be anything other than a mistake. She agreed to two dates because she wasn’t sure if _Jaime_ was a mistake too.

After two dates, though, she should have stopped. She wanted to. The dates were _fine_ , and perhaps Hyle had changed for the better—if only slightly—and perhaps she could forget that he’d once lied his way into her bed. She’d been lying to him too, by agreeing to go on dates with him, so maybe they were even. But he’d asked to see her again, with so much confidence that she’d say yes, that she’d panicked and agreed _again_. She’ll tell him next time, though. After the third date, she’ll tell him she doesn’t think it can go any further.

But first, she’ll find her way into Jaime’s bed. Jaime who might be a mistake, but who’ll make her forget that she’d agreed to three dates with a man she didn’t really want to date at all.

Later that night, before she’s about to leave, she tells Jaime about Hyle without quite knowing why. Hells, she doesn’t know why she does any of the things she does with Jaime. Everything is all knotted up inside her, and she is still picking at these knots when Jaime comes back from the bathroom, and it makes her blurt out all this bullshit about how if it goes well with this one man—it _isn’t_ going well, not well enough to keep her away from Jaime—then they would have to… _to stop. This._

He guesses that it’s Hyle. She wasn’t aware that he’d noticed Hyle asking her out, and now nothing about tonight is going according to plan. She hadn’t planned on agreeing to a third date with Hyle, but she had; she hadn’t planned on telling Jaime about these dates, but she had; she hadn’t planned on Jaime finding out that she’d been seeing Hyle, but he had. And it’s all going downhill, because Jaime _knows_ , not just that she’d been seeing Hyle, but that she had seen Hyle _tonight_. He’d deduced that from her outfit and her lipstick and _shit_ , she should just throw on all her clothes and leave like she always does, but then he’s accusing her of—what exactly is he accusing her of? Of being _easy_? Of actually wanting to fuck _Hyle Hunt_? She’d already slept with him once, and that had been her only reference point for sex until Jaime came along and showed her how different it could be, how much better, how much more overwhelming it could—

What the fuck is Jaime doing? Why the fuck is his hand on his cock, stroking it though he’s still soft, and why the fuck is it making her nipples harden beneath the bra she’d already put on, making her cunt wet inside the panties she’d already pulled up her legs? She won’t succumb to this. She reaches down to the floor for her trousers but Jaime is _still going_ , still interrogating her, still _stroking his cock_ , and:

“You came here so you could imagine me in his place, is that—”

She’s on top of him. She’d barely realised what was happening before she was across the bed and astride him, her cunt so close to his fist where he’s still gripping himself. There is no time to rip off her panties, not when he’s still soft, and she takes him in her hand and moves her fist up and down and up again, the way she knows he likes, the way she’s learned and grown so familiar with that she hardly blushes at the act anymore. His cock twitches, hardens, though not quite enough; she shifts herself forward so her clit is hot against his shaft, so her fingers rub against herself on each downstroke, so she makes herself whimper. She doesn’t think Jaime notices—he’s throwing his head back, and moaning in time with her movements—and then _oh_ , it’s hard enough now, and she pushes her panties to the side and slips his cock into her, just like that.

She rides.

It feels more intense than it’s ever felt before.

Jaime shifts beneath her, trying to sit up, but she holds him down with both palms on his chest and _rides_. Why did she come here, to Jaime’s bed, after her second date with Hyle? Why is she astride Jaime, taking Jaime, _fucking_ Jaime, after her second date with Hyle?

 _You came here so you could imagine me in his place._ That’s the farthest thing from the truth. She came here because, even though she’d tried, she couldn’t imagine anyone else inside her besides _Jaime._

He tightens his grip on her thighs—he’s close, wants to pull out—but she won’t let him. She holds him down with both palms, with her hips, insistent. _Come inside me_ , she doesn’t have to say.

He does.

She can’t imagine anyone else inside her.

“I needed to remind myself,” she tells him after.

“About?”

She isn’t sure how to put it into words. “About… what it feels like to—to be with someone,” is the best she can come up with.

“It hasn’t been that long since we…”

“I know.” She’s tucking her blouse into her trousers already, ignoring how soaked her panties are. “But still.”

Was Jaime the reminder, or Hyle? She doesn’t have the answer. She just knows that all the hours she’d spent alone with Hyle so far—not much, really, four or five—feel like hours she’d lost with Jaime. Hyle had put his hand on hers, had pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, and she wanted to erase both those touches from her memory. She wanted Jaime’s hands on her body, not anyone else’s. She wanted Jaime’s lips on her, his cock in her—not anyone else’s.

It dawns on her: she’d wanted to make Jaime jealous. That’s why she told him about Hyle. It’s a stupid, cruel game she’s playing, but— _she’d made Jaime jealous._ He was jealous before she’d fucked him, jealous while she’d fucked him, jealous now. _Did you fuck him?_ he’s asking her, and she hates herself for stooping this low. _No_ , she replies, zipping up her trousers. _I didn’t._

She’s made a huge mess of everything. She needs to leave, because she’s made a huge mess of everything, and fuck it, she’ll cancel her third date with Hyle first thing tomorrow, and she wishes she could go back in time to cancel the first. On her way home, though, she feels this—this tingle, this warmth in her chest. _Did you fuck him?_ Jaime had asked, and those four words ring in her head over and over again, with all their bitterness and fear and _please, Brienne, tell me you didn’t fuck someone else._ That was what she’d heard—what she’d hoped she’d heard. _I don’t want you to fuck anyone else._

Hope. Hope is the biggest mistake of all.

* * *

**【+1】**

The first night that Jaime is away for his work trip in Dorne, Brienne regrets going home on time.

It’s not that she can’t busy herself with work at home—she’s always been good at that—but the fact that she has to busy herself at all annoys her. The fact that home is where she usually receives **come overs** from Jaime annoys her. The fact that she might have to avoid coming home this early for the next nine evenings annoys her.

The fact that he’d told her he doesn’t want to sleep with anyone else annoys her most of all.

It shouldn’t. Deep down, isn’t that what she wants? Hadn’t it given her hope when Jaime got so angry about Hyle, about the possibility that _she_ might have slept with someone else? Hadn’t she regretted telling him to find someone else to sleep with while he was in Dorne, pretty much as soon as the words were out of her mouth? Logically, doesn’t that mean she shouldn’t want him to sleep with anyone else either?

Still, it annoys her. Or maybe it’s the part after that that annoys her. She’d dared to ask him to clarify his statement, reminded him that he’d said _no strings_ , and what he’d said was:

“But that just means—it means _we_ can fuck with no strings. It doesn’t mean I have to fuck anyone else, does it?”

Nothing has changed. This exclusivity—it’s just a technicality. It’s just… Jaime’s interpretation of the rules, that’s all, and it doesn’t mean it’ll last. The fact that she has to remind herself of that—especially when he’d said that he only wants to sleep with _her_ —is really, _really_ annoying her.

(Did he _have_ to say that thing about how he’s the one that’s leaving this time? With that tone? He was the one who’d said _no strings_ , and _no strings_ means she’s free to leave before morning, doesn’t it? She doesn’t deserve to be guilt-tripped for _that_.)

She’s annoyed. She’s annoyed at Jaime, and at herself. She’s annoyed that she can’t go over to Jaime’s apartment and fuck all this annoyance away.

She stays late in the office on the second night of his trip, and the third. She tries to write, but all of it is terrible. Instead, she spends her energy on pretending not to notice that Jaime hasn’t texted since the night before he left. It’s silly—what would he text her for, anyway, if not to **come over**? Still, she tries to pretend this doesn’t annoy her on top of all the things that are already annoying her.

On the fourth night, on impulse, she looks up the prices of flights to Dorne on her work computer. They’re actually not altogether unreasonable, provided she takes a flight that leaves at five in the morning. She hasn’t taken time off work in a while—she’d worked practically every day for months on the Sansa Stark story—and in a hypothetical world in which she could ask for the next six days off with only twelve hours’ notice, perhaps she might fly to Dorne. She could book her own room in Jaime’s hotel, or in a more affordable hotel nearby, and sure, he’d be busy in the day, but he’d text her to **come over** in the evenings, and they would—

He’s calling her. Why is he calling her? She closes the incriminating tabs in her browser—flights, hotels, things to do in Dorne—then almost drops her phone when she tries to answer his call. When she finally does, she says, tentatively:

“… Hello?”

“Hey.”

_Gods, has his voice always sounded this good?_

“… Hi?”

“Hi.”

“Um. Is something wrong?”

“No. Not really.”

“Oh. Uh—”

“… Is something wrong with _you_?”

“Um—no? Why do you ask?”

“You sound flustered.”

“I just…” _I was just fantasising about flying to Dorne so we could fuck._ “You always text. You never call.”

“I call.”

“Only for work. And we’re not… Oh.” Of course. He must be calling for work reasons; he must need some help for his research. “Is there something you need me to do here?”

“No. I… No.”

But if he isn’t calling for work reasons, then— “Um. Okay. Well—uh—how’s your trip?”

“Okay, I guess. Besides the fact that it is very hot here, and Martells are very—” He pauses. “Never mind. It’s hot.”

 _What was that?_ “Martells are very…?”

“Hm. I suppose you could say that they’re very… _frisky._ ”

“… Frisky?” Why would he pick the word _frisky_? It makes her think of puppies.

“Well,” he drawls. “Let’s just say they’re not afraid to make… propositions. Uh—sexually speaking.”

“Oh!” She shouldn’t have thought of puppies. “ _Oh._ ”

“I don’t know how they do it. They manage to keep things _just_ on the edge of inappropriate. It actually makes you feel rather flattered, in a way.”

“Oh.” That doesn’t sound flattering at all, actually. “Well, that’s… problematic.”

“I suppose it is, isn’t it? If you’re not Dornish.”

She doesn’t know enough about the Dornish to comment further, and then she’s distracted by someone’s battle with the copy machine, and by the time she realises she has nothing more to add, so much time has passed that she’s convinced Jaime will hang up in the next three seconds.

Instead, he asks: “Are you still in the office?”

“Yes.” Guiltily, she thinks of all the tabs she’d just closed. “I have, uh—just some—some paperwork to finish up.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Um. I guess.” It _would_ be boring if she was actually doing paperwork. “But it has to be done.”

“Brienne Tarth. Always the good soldier.”

There had been a rustling sound in between those two sentences, like hair rubbing against a pillow. Of course he’s in bed— _of course he is._ “Whereas you’re off in Dorne being… propositioned,” she huffs in response.

“Hey. If you were here, you would be too.”

She can’t help but burst out laughing. “ _Me?_ ”

“Why not?” he asks, as if the idea of her being propositioned isn’t absurd in the least.

Suddenly, she remembers she’s supposed to be annoyed at Jaime. “You know what I look like,” she grumbles.

“I do. Which is why I think they’ll be interested. They’ll find you interesting.”

“Interesting,” she repeats, each syllable grating against her skin. She hates that word in this context, hates the way people have always used it to tiptoe around her ugliness. ‘Interesting’ is the kindest praise she could ever receive about her looks without being an outright lie, and sometimes she thinks it’s just as cruel as the truth. Jaime had said it so matter-of-factly, though. As if it was just an observation, and not a consolation.

“Is there something wrong with that?” he asks.

“Huh? Oh. It’s nothing,” she lies.

“Interesting is sexy.”

“Sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. She tries to ignore the fact—another fact that is sure to annoy her later tonight—that this is the first time Jaime has ever called her _sexy_.

“It is. To the Dornish, and to me.” He sighs, and she hears the rustle of sheets again. “I could do with _interesting_ right about now.”

She freezes.

Is he suggesting what she thinks he’s suggesting?

“ _Jaime,_ ” she hisses, dropping her voice to a whisper. “ _I’m still in the office._ ”

“What?” _Fuck._ Maybe he wasn’t— “Oh. I was just—I wasn’t—”

“Oh. Shit. Forget that I—”

“I didn’t think that was something you’d want to—”

“No, I’ve never—”

This is awful. This is so much worse than annoying. Or it would be, if he hadn’t said:

“Would you?”

 _Fuck it._ They’re down this road already, and it’s not like she can fly to Dorne no matter how reasonably priced those tickets are, she might as well—

“I’ll call you when I get home,” she says in a rush, and hangs up.

She drives so recklessly on the way home—she _never_ drives recklessly—that she thinks she could have gotten into three separate accidents. Thankfully, she makes it home in one piece, and she is so genuinely thankful to the Seven because she’s about to have _phone sex with Jaime_ , and it’s probably going to be utterly embarrassing but it’s better than not having sex with Jaime at all, right?

Right?

Oh gods. Maybe it isn’t better. But it’s too late, because she’s in just a t-shirt and her panties and she’s on her bed and she’s calling Jaime and—

“Hey,” he says, when he picks up the phone after half a ring.

“Hey,” she replies. “Um. I don’t know how this works.”

“That’s okay. Uh—” he gulps— “do you want to—the camera—”

“No!” _Absolutely fucking not._ “Gods, no. Is that—okay?”

“Sure. Yes. It’s just—more talking.”

“Yes. Alright. Are you—in bed?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Um. Yes.”

“What are you wearing?”

“Well—my—I’m just in a t-shirt, and, uh—my panties.” She can barely say the word _panties_ out loud _._ Hells, everything about this is awkward; they’re like two different people, over the phone. “Uh,” she continues, “What about you?”

“Nothing,” he purrs, his voice pitched low now. Seriously, she wants to know if his voice has always sounded this good.

“N-nothing?”

“I was… impatient. I was already getting hard.”

“Did you—” she tries to modify her voice, tries to be _seductive_ — “did you get started without me?”

“I didn’t have to. I was getting hard just thinking about you.”

 _Fuck._ “Really. And now?”

“I have my hand on my cock. Wishing it was yours instead.”

“It is,” she says, and suddenly it seems true. “I—I’m there with you, in your hotel room. I have—” she stops. “I’m sorry. Is this how it works? Am I supposed to talk about myself, or—”

“You’re fine. You’re here, in my hotel room. You’re wearing just a t-shirt. No panties.”

“Yes.” No panties. Right. She can do that. “I’ve just—I’ve taken them off.”

“Which ones?”

“Black. They were—I was already wet.”

“Good. So—you’re here. You have one hand on my cock. Where’s the other one?”

“I’m—I’m touching myself.” Brienne reaches her fingers down. “I’m lying beside you, and I’m touching myself.”

“Where?”

“On my—” she gasps— “My fingers are, they’re on my clit. Going in circles.”

“Mm. How fast?”

“Slow. But I can—”

“No. Slow is good. We have plenty of time.”

“Okay. And you—” she unfolds the scene in her mind— “you have one hand up my shirt. You’re playing with my—my nipple.”

She can feel it, Jaime’s thumb and forefinger, not hers. “And my other hand?” he asks.

 _Shit, where would it—_ “Uh—nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I can’t—” She groans; this is _ridiculous_. “Hells, Jaime, I can’t fucking choreograph this—”

“Alright, alright,” he laughs. “Is it better if I talk you through it?”

“I—but I should say—”

“You don’t have to. I’ll just—I’ll listen to you. That’s enough. We’ll start over. You’re here with me, in Dorne. In my hotel room. Just in your t-shirt. I’m naked, next to you on the bed.”

“I have my hand on your cock.”

“You have your hand on my cock. And I’m the one that has my fingers on your clit. Can you feel that?”

“Yes,” she breathes, circling her bud again. Jaime’s fingers circling her bud again.

“And I’m—gods, you’re wet. I’m sliding my fingers down your cunt and you’re so wet for me.”

“I am, I’m— _ah_ —”

“I’m slipping a finger into you. Just one—”

“No—” _not yet—_ “you’re—I want you—just my clit. Just—”

“That’s it,” he coos. “I’m right where you want me to be, Brienne.”

Her breaths are coming quicker now, and so are his. “Faster, Jaime—”

“As fast as you like. Gods, you know just how to touch me—”

“I do, I—you’re so hard, I—”

She knew it was the wrong thing to say even before he laughs.

“Jaime!” she scolds him anyway. “What the hell was that for?”

“I’m sorry, you just—you never say things like that.”

She doesn’t, and ordinarily she’d cringe at the thought of it, but— “I’ve never had sex with you over a damn phone call!”

“Fair. Alright, let’s just—put me on speaker.”

“What?”

“Turn on your speaker, and I’ll turn mine on too, and just—touch yourself.”

“… That’s it?”

“Yeah. Imagine whatever you need to. No description, just—imagination.”

“O-okay.”

She sets her phone on the pillow beside her, and hears Jaime do the same. Then, she closes her eyes, and just moves. She imagines her hand is his, or his cock, or his mouth; she imagines she has her lips on his lips, his neck, his nipples. It’s not a single scene in her head—just fragments, flashes of him—but his breaths are one continuous melody, the way he moans her name, sighs. She still says things she never says, things she would otherwise have communicated with her body, but he doesn’t laugh again. He coaxes her instead, or says those things right back to her, or simply groans. Then:

_I’m so close—_

_I’m almost there—_

_Ah—I, fuck Jaime, right there—_

_I’m coming—_

When she cries out, she hears him cry out too.

“Hey,” he says eventually, after what must have been hours. “You there?”

She fumbles for her phone, switches off the speaker. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“How was that?”

“Not as disastrous as I thought. Though I still prefer the real thing.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Me too.”

“But I’m not—” she pauses. “I’m not opposed to—to trying. Again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean—while you’re in Dorne.”

Why the hell not? Why the hell not, if she can’t fly to Dorne at five in the morning tomorrow?

“Hmm,” he says. “They do say that practice makes perfect.”

“They do.”

“Alright. I’ll text you?”

“Yeah. Okay. Text me.”

It’s over. This should be the point where she says goodbye, hangs up. It should be, but she doesn’t speak, doesn’t want to be the one that leaves first. In a way, tonight is the first time Jaime has been in her home, her room, her bed.

Tonight is the first time she doesn’t want to run.

“So this is what it feels like,” she murmurs, after a long time of just listening to Jaime breathe.

“What?” he laughs. “Attempted phone sex?”

But she doesn’t laugh with him.

“No,” she says softly. “Staying behind.”

* * *

**【4】**

As a rule—if there isn’t anything urgent to deal with for work—Brienne doesn’t get out of bed before ten on Sunday mornings. Eleven, if she’s feeling especially indulgent; it’s one of the few pleasures she allows herself to enjoy.

This morning, though, she is up by seven thirty for no good reason.

Well, there _is_ a reason. Whether it’s a good reason or not…

Alright. It’s a good reason.

Jaime’s coming back this morning.

Jaime’s coming back after ten days in Dorne, and there’s a chance he’ll ask her to **come over** tonight. She spends the next few hours trying not to be too excited about that prospect, because maybe he’ll be tired, and maybe he’ll want a Sunday to himself, and that’s okay because she’ll see him in the office tomorrow and maybe he’ll ask her to **come over** tomorrow night instead, and if he doesn’t then there’s a very real chance that she might ask him to **come over** to her place for the very first time, and _damn it, it’s only been ten days, didn’t I live all these years without fucking anyone?_

Unfortunately, of all the possibilities she’d considered, she hadn’t considered that Jaime might text her:

**Just landed.**

So he’s back, and he felt the need to inform her while his plane is still on the runway. Why? What is she supposed to say to a message like _that_? **Great**? **Hope you had a good flight**? **See you soon**? A smiley face, or a thumbs up, or a—a _heart_?

Definitely not that last one. She shouldn’t send hearts to Jaime Lannister. It doesn’t matter that he’d called her almost every night for the past week. He is only the man that she sleeps with—no strings.

She decides on a thumbs up in the end. Safe, and applicable to all forms of relationships, including ‘colleagues who had worked together for months, and then started sleeping with each other regularly, and then started talking on the phone almost every night for a week when one of them was in Dorne, and who apparently now tell each other when their flights have landed’. Oh, and during one of those phone calls, the one who was in Dorne told the one who was in King’s Landing that they should have started fucking much earlier.

Thumbs up to that.

Then, she gets that **come over** much earlier than expected.

 **Now?** she texts back, disbelieving. She’s never gone over to Jaime’s in the day before. **Or tonight?**

 **Now,** he replies. **If you’re free.**

She is. She wants to say yes. She’s also already decided what to cook for lunch, and she doesn’t want to be the kind of person that changes their plans just because they couldn’t wait an extra hour or two for sex.

 **Can I come after lunch?** she says.

**Sure.**

Her lunch doesn’t turn out well. It’s edible, but not as good as it could have been if she’d concentrated on cooking instead of letting her mind wander towards Jaime. But she eats, and she showers, and she puts on her nicest pair of panties even though it’s not much different from every other pair she owns, and she skips the bra because, well, there really isn’t any point.

By two, she’s at Jaime’s front door. She wonders if he’ll fuck her against the door again—they haven’t touched each other in _ten days_ —but she doesn’t find impatience on the other side. She finds Jaime smiling, and saying hi, and even offering her some coffee. So she smiles, and says hi back, declines with a _no, thank you_. She’s blushing already; he hasn’t even touched her. When he pulls her in close, there is no urgency in him at all. He runs the fingers of one hand down her spine, twirls the fingers of the other in her hair at the base of her neck. Gently, he nibbles and sucks at her lip, does so for the longest time before he slips the tip of his tongue past her teeth. He’s hungry—she can tell—but this is so different from any hunger she’s ever felt from him, and it’s making her blush even _more_.

It’s different. This whole afternoon is different. Something is shifting beneath her feet and she doesn’t know what it is, and now he’s leading her to his bedroom and it’s so _bright_ in here. She never knew it could be this bright in here, brighter now that he’s lifting up her shirt, blazing now that she’s naked on his bed, _hells_ , it feels like the sun is searing every one of her freckles into her skin—

“You don’t have to do anything,” she hears Jaime say from above her. “Just… let me enjoy you. It’s been too long.”

She nods, and tries to imagine that it’s nighttime, that it’s just her and Jaime and the soft, familiar, forgiving glow of the lamp by his bed.

“Will you relax?” he tells her, as he kneels on the bed with her thighs between his. “You look like a corpse.”

That wasn’t the criticism she was expecting, but she glares at him anyway. “You just told me not to do anything.”

“Don’t do anything _except_ relax, then.”

How does relaxing work again? She can’t seem to recall. She tries to wake up all her muscles so she can will them back into some restful state, but this only makes Jaime laugh and say, “You’re just fidgeting, now.”

She snaps her head towards him. “Tie me up then, if you don’t want me to move.”

Too late, she claps her hand over her mouth. She should have clapped her hand over her mouth _before_ she said those words, because that was the worst possible retort she could have come up with. Her skin feels hot all over, especially in her cheeks, and it isn’t because of the sunlight.

“ _Oh_ ,” he teases, “is that something you’re interested in? Because I can—”

“No!” _Why the hell did I_ — “Not really. Sorry, I just—”

“It’s fine.” He dips down to kiss her, nibbling at her bottom lip again just as he’d done when he first kissed her earlier, and for a moment she can forget herself—forget her body exposed in the sunlight—and she lets a soft moan escape her. Jaime’s lips trace a line of kisses across her burning cheek, then he reaches her ear and whispers:

“I want you in the sun. Is that… bothering you?”

She remembers now, some cruel thing he’d said a long time ago, back when it was only animosity between them. “You once told me I was much uglier in daylight.”

His eyes widen; he remembers too. She hopes she hadn’t sounded bitter. “I was frustrated,” he replies, brushing a thumb over her cheek. “And rude.”

Frustrated, rude, but not wrong. “It’s alright,” she lies. “It’s the truth.”

He frowns. She must have sounded bitter after all. “I was wrong,” he insists, and it only makes her cheek smart where he’d touched it so tenderly. “The sunlight—it brings out your eyes.”

 _Oh._ She’s always liked her eyes; she’s always been able to look in the mirror and think, effortlessly, that they’re a pleasing shade of blue. Now, she likes that Jaime likes them too. It’s so odd—oddly _nice_ —to receive a compliment and believe it. It’s so nice that she has to look away, which reveals her neck to Jaime, which makes him lean down and press his lips to it. Another moan escapes, and Jaime darts his tongue out to lick her skin, and good, this is a hunger she understands. _Just for future reference,_ he tells her, _I’m not opposed to being tied up_ , and this is a hunger she understands too. _Oh_ , she says—out loud this time—and thinks it’s funny that she might tie up someone who doesn’t want to be tied down.

 _It’s different_ , she thinks again as Jaime kisses his way down her body. This whole afternoon is different. Something is shifting beneath her feet and she still doesn’t know what it is—only that she’d been confused before, blinded by the light, and now she knows that she _likes_ it. She likes the sunshine, because it means Jaime is in the sunshine too, golden hair and golden skin bathed in golden light, framed on either side by her pale flesh, and glowing even more because of it. She likes that she can see, clearly, that there is never a trace of a grimace on Jaime’s face, that there is something like anticipation that prefaces every touch, especially when he lowers his head between her thighs. She likes how everything feels excruciatingly, deliciously slow, that he holds her gaze across her belly while he drags his tongue up her seam, so gradually that she thinks she might come before he even reaches her clit, because he is wicked, and she likes that too. She likes that—with all this time that Jaime is taking with her, and in spite of all the time they’ve already spent together—they are discovering new things for him to do, new feelings for her to feel, new ways for both of them to respond; they are discovering that when his mouth finds a ticklish spot she never knew about, he will laugh into her skin as she squirms, which only makes her squirm even more, which turns into a writhe as he brings one hand to her cunt and the other to her breast and sucks, sucks, sucks on that spot that tickles, and makes her come just like that. She likes how, when he finally enters her, everything about it feels so fiercely _right_ , and when he buries himself to the hilt, he pauses there as if to say _we were made to be joined like this_ , and she believes this thing that he doesn’t say, and she reaches up to bring his head to hers so she can meet his lips, shifts her hips so he will move again and say _we were made for this, we were made for this, we were made for this._

Most of all, she likes the warmth she holds inside her when he kisses her goodbye that evening, a warmth that lasts her all the way till she falls asleep later that night. Call it hope, or satisfaction, or happiness—

Oh.

She likes that she is _happy_.

And then, she doesn’t.

When she opens her eyes on Monday morning, something is wrong. Something feels tight and tangled in her chest. She thinks back to yesterday afternoon, when things felt different, when something had shifted beneath her feet and she’d _liked_ it, but she can’t find any of the happiness she’d felt the day before. Or maybe it’s still there inside her, but so are other things—so are panic, and fear, and confusion, and dread. And she doesn’t like any of those things.

_You’re in too deep, Brienne. You’re in too deep for something that was never meant to last._

She ignores it at first. It’ll pass, she thinks. Yet bit by bit, over the course of the day, that happiness is swallowed deeper into her tight and tangled chest. She grasps for it, tries to free it from its restraints—thinks of Jaime, looks across the office at Jaime, Jaime who was made for her—but it only seems to make it worse. Her happiness becomes all those other things too, knotted and strangled by these—these _strings_ , until she no longer likes that she was happy. Until she is no longer happy at all. The panic, and fear, and confusion, and dread—they had consumed that precious golden afternoon before she could do anything to stop it from happening.

Every morning for the next week, she wakes up hoping she can feel that happiness again, but she can’t. Every time she meets Jaime’s eyes in the office, she hopes she can feel that happiness again—the happiness she can still see in his face—but she can’t. Every time Jaime asks her to **come over** that week, she thinks _maybe tonight, maybe it’ll be different tonight_ , but maybe it _won’t_. So she tells him that she’s busy. She doesn’t want to take the chance that when she goes home afterwards, she’ll be returning to an empty apartment filled with panic, and fear, and confusion, and dread.

She wants this to end. She wants to stop avoiding Jaime in the office and over text. One week later, when she and Jaime and a handful of other people are working late on a Monday night, she thinks maybe she doesn’t even need the happiness anymore. All she wants is for things to go back to the way they were before Jaime had left for Dorne, before he’d told her he didn’t want to sleep with anyone else, before he’d gotten jealous about Hyle. Before she’d had the chance to hope.

Then, she’s alone with Jaime in a hallway.

Then, he pulls her into a supply closet.

Then, he’s demanding answers from her, answers she cannot give, and he’s leaning in close with his hands on either side of her, gripping the shelf behind her.

“I thought—” he says, “I thought last Sunday was good. You seemed so… _happy_.”

_I know. I was._

He kisses her. It doesn’t make any sense that he would kiss her right now, but then it hadn’t made sense when he’d kissed her the first time, and perhaps none of their kisses since then ever made any sense.

(Still, it feels so fiercely _right_. It feels like they were made for this.)

She tears herself away. “Jaime—we _can’t_.”

She’d said that without quite knowing what it is they can’t do, only that everything in her head is a mess and Jaime’s kisses are making it worse.

“You want me,” he says, almost pleading, and that makes it worse too, even if he’s right. “Is it me? Was it something I did? Tell me what I did wrong, and I—I’ll fix it—”

“No—it’s not you.” _It’s not you, it’s me_ ; the old cliché. “I just don’t think—”

He kisses her again. Silences her, except she can still make sounds even if she can’t form words, but her sounds are not sounds of protest. She’s moaning into his mouth already, and then into the stale air of the supply closet when he breaks from her to put his lips to her neck, and then she remembers that they’re _still in the office_ and feels the blood rushing to her cheeks, but not enough to stop him because she’s gone a week without Jaime and ten days without him before that, and now he’s fumbling to get her fly open, and now he’s sticking his hand into her panties and skating his fingers over her clit and saying:

“You’re wet. You’re already so wet for me.”

And she is. She was, even before she’d got up to go to the bathroom, which had given Jaime the opportunity to intercept her in the hallway in the first place. She was wet because she knew he was there, and she knew he was looking at her, and despite all the panic and fear and confusion and dread she could still remember what it felt like that Sunday afternoon, those hours and hours of pleasure. She’s wetter now, _fuck_ , and she wants him inside her so badly, because they were made to be joined like this.

 _Fuck me, Jaime. Don’t stop._ She is the type of person to say things like that; she is when she’s with Jaime. But she won’t say it again, not here in the supply closet, because Jaime puts his hand over her mouth to remind her that they’re still in the office, and that there are still other people out there who might hear her when she tells him _don’t stop._ He fucks her as quietly as could possibly be managed, but each time he enters her there is panic and fear and confusion and dread, not just hers but his too, and there is also desire.

_We were made for this._

_We were made for this._

_We were made for this._

At the end of it, there is no happiness. She’d come, twice, but that warmth she’d felt last Sunday doesn’t bloom. Still, she presses herself to Jaime as she feels his peak approach; she lets him come inside her again, just like she’d done the night she told him about Hyle. She wants to be filled with something, somewhere in her body, something other than panic and fear and confusion and dread, something other than that tight and tangled parasite in her chest that devoured all the happiness of one golden afternoon. Desire, and the evidence of it—she wants it to linger in her for as long as possible, long after she’s made her escape. And she will escape, soon enough, as always.

For a brief moment, though, before Jaime can soften and slip from her, they cling to each other as if—

as if it’s the only thing keeping them alive.

It can’t be right to want someone like this.

(It can’t be right to be wanted like this.)

* * *

**【5+】**

Meeting at Jaime’s apartment seemed like a practical choice, at first.

It was all about work, back when they started. They were still investigating Sansa Stark’s disappearance, and there would occasionally be a need to discuss things outside of the workplace. Jaime’s apartment made sense, considering how much closer it is to the _Times_ offices than Brienne’s. Lucky for her, the trip from his home to hers is bearable by public transport, and decent by car, so it had never been a hassle for her to travel between them. That made it practical, too, when they started sleeping together; even if she went home after work, and was summoned by a **come over** later, she had no issues travelling to Jaime’s. She was used to the journey by then, and there didn’t seem to be a point in insisting on taking turns.

The longer their arrangement went on, though—the longer it took place exclusively at Jaime’s—the more she’d wondered. Was it really a practical choice, or was that just an excuse? Jaime had never asked about it, but she would ask herself, some nights. What was the harm in having him over, really? She keeps her home neat and tidy, and while it’s far from luxurious—she can’t compare it to apartments bought with Lannister money—it’s perfectly comfortable for her. Sure, it’s a small one bedroom, and she would go insane if she had someone else living with her, but for the purposes of her arrangement with Jaime…

Still, as the months went on, she never took that step of inviting him over. Not even when she was the one to initiate their meetings. She told herself it was out of force of habit, but perhaps it was also her way of honouring their agreement. Having Jaime over to her place felt like… like changing the parameters. It felt like _I want you closer to me_. It felt like strings.

So it made sense that she’d been tempted to ask him over on the Sunday he’d come back from Dorne. It made sense because there were already strings. There were strings when she was searching for flights to Dorne, strings when she told him about Hyle, strings when he first asked her to **come over**. There were strings even on that wine-soaked night, almost half a year ago, when she’d resolved to say goodbye to Jaime for good. By the time she’d noticed, it was too late. Something tight and tangled had formed in her chest, and devoured the happiness of a golden afternoon.

Anyway. She doesn’t need to worry about this anymore. There is no chance, now, that Jaime will ever see the inside of her apartment.

It had taken three days for her to decide—three days since the supply closet, three more days of avoiding Jaime—but she’d made up her mind, and she’ll be the one to end things between them. Tonight, she’ll go over to Jaime’s apartment for the last time, and it’ll really be goodbye for good.

No more strings.

She turns up at his place a few minutes before nine, which was the time they’d agreed upon when she texted him last night, which she’d suggested even though she has a deadline at noon tomorrow. She’d thought it was a good idea—she has an excuse to leave, and something to take her mind off things when she gets home—but she’s adding it to her list of regrets now, now that she’s sitting on his couch. Now that she’s seen his face, and how haggard he looks tonight. Now that he’s taking more time than necessary to make tea, though she told him he didn’t have to.

After Jaime brings over the teapot and two cups, they sit there for too long watching the steam rise from the spout. She had a whole script prepared in her head, a plan for how to phrase each sentence, but it’s all a blur now. If the tea wasn’t still steeping, perhaps she could have jogged her memory with a sip or two. Instead, she’s picking at her nails, and trying not to think about how Jaime hasn’t looked her in the eye tonight.

Finally, she recalls how she’d meant to begin, and says:

“I’m sorry I’ve been… uncommunicative.”

Jaime only grunts.

“I needed some time to think,” she continues. “About us.”

He reaches over to the pot, pours a little bit of tea into one cup. She can see that it’s too light, still. He sits back.

“We’ve never really talked about this arrangement, have we?” she asks, staring at the ground. “Not since the start.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

 _Everything. Everything and nothing._ “About our conditions. About whether we’re… on the same page.”

“I suppose you’re here to tell me we’re not,” he says, eyes still on the teapot.

“No. I… I don’t think so.”

Alright. It’s out there now. She’d barely been able to follow her script, but she’d managed to say _we’re not on the same page_. She’s surprised at how calm she sounds, at odds with how twisted up she feels. That tight and tangled thing sits stubbornly in her chest.

“I really—” Jaime almost seems to choke. “I thought it was going well.”

“Me too,” she admits.

“I thought you still—wanted this. The day I got back from Dorne—”

“I—” She heaves a sigh. “It’s not because I don’t.”

“Then… why? Will you at least tell me why?”

He sounds so helpless. Helpless and desperate for an answer, just as he’d been desperate in the supply closet on Monday. She knows the answer to his question now—there are strings, when there shouldn’t be—but there’s no point in telling him that, is there? He wants her, wants her _without strings_. She has found solace in that desire before, and will find it again one day, but tonight—

“Is there—” Jaime asks, almost choking again— “gods, is there someone else?”

“No!” _How could I have—_ “Jaime— _fuck_.”

 _Fuck_.

She’s crying. Crying was never part of the script. Not in front of Jaime, _fuck_. She tries to wipe away her tears with the back of one hand, but then Jaime has both his hands on her cheeks, _fuck_ , this is making everything worse, now he’ll know that she’d fucked everything up and there are strings when there shouldn’t—

 _Don’t kiss me_ , she thinks, as Jaime kisses her. She can taste the salt of her tears between their lips, more so each time he pulls back and kisses her again.

“We can fix this,” he says, between kisses. “We can—I don’t want to lose this.”

“We _can’t_. It’s—it’s not enough for me anymore.” _Fuck._ She wasn’t supposed to—she wasn’t supposed to give any indication that— “I thought I could—that Sunday—then I realised—”

She wasn’t supposed to say any of this. She was supposed to come here and end things by saying they weren’t on the same page, and that was supposed to be it. She wasn’t supposed to cry at all, or explain too much, or give any indication that she wants something he can’t give, and _gods_ , she’s the one choking now.

“Don’t—” Jaime says— “you don’t have to speak—just—” and he kisses her again. On her forehead, on her eyelids, on her cheek. _Don’t kiss me_ , she thinks. _Don’t do this._

_Don’t stop._

She winds her arms around him, and buries her head in his shoulder. She is selfish; she accepts all the kisses he gives, even now. She should give him something back, an answer, the truth. At this point, she should just—

“Jaime—I’m—I’m all tangled up about you.”

There shouldn’t have been any strings. But there are.

There always have been.

He stares at her first. Just stares. He will nod at any moment, give her one last kiss, and they will say goodbye for good. But then, he _laughs_. It’s gentle, but Jaime _laughs_ , and this is _terrible_ , what possessed her to tell him at all? She pulls back from their embrace, but he grabs her hand and brings it to his lips and kisses it. Why is he doing this? Why did he kiss her, then laugh at her, then kiss her again?

“Brienne—shit.” He kisses her hand once more. “You should have just—I’m all tangled up about you too.”

_What?_

_That can’t be—_

_But he—_

“No,” she says, “you don’t—it’s not just—”

“I know. You want more—more than just no strings. I think I do too.”

Her mouth is hanging open. She shuts it, and wrests her hand from his. What is this? Some kind of cruel joke? Some trick to keep her in his bed, is that what this is?

“Don’t do this, Jaime,” she warns, wiping at her tear-stained cheeks. “Don’t offer me something you can’t give just because you want someone to fuck.”

He narrows his eyes. “Is that what you think? That you’re just someone to fuck? I already told you I don’t want to sleep with anyone else.”

“That doesn’t mean—I know I’m… familiar, and I come when you ask me to—”

“Seven hells, Brienne.” He stands from the couch, and walks around to the other side of the coffee table. “Did you come here to ask for more, or—”

“I _didn’t_.” _More_ was never in the script. _More_ was nothing but a fantasy, a fantasy so wild that she’d never dared give it form in her mind. “I wasn’t intending to ask.”

“Why not?” Jaime frowns. “I get that I—that we haven’t talked about any of this. But did you just—assume I wouldn’t want more?”

“I—” She puts her head in her hands now. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust _me_ ,” she says, jerking her head back up. “I don’t trust that I—that I…”

_I don’t trust that I can get what I want._

_No—I don’t trust that I can be wanted at all._

_Not all of me. Not with strings._

She won’t say these things out loud, or can’t. She knows she shouldn’t think of them; knows that they are horrible. But they feel true. They sit there, tight and tangled in her chest, taunting her. Suffocating her.

Protecting her.

She believes that, doesn’t she? As painful as it’s been, as much as she’s been wanting to unknot this thing in her chest, some part of her knows that it’s armour, growing from inside her. It’s an armour to protect her from Jaime—from the Jaime who could hurt her, who could _leave_ her.

But Jaime is—this Jaime, the Jaime who’s in the room with her now—

He isn’t leaving.

He’s walking towards her.

Falling to his knees beside her.

Reaching for her cheek.

“Stay with me tonight,” this Jaime says. “And the day after, and the day after that. Stay. Let’s get tangled up in each other.”

“That sounds messy,” she whispers.

“It already is. We’re—we’re messy people. We’ll screw up, and hurt each other without meaning to, but we’ll talk and we’ll fuck and it’ll always be better in the morning.”

Just like that. Just like that, he’d given form to that wild fantasy of hers, the fantasy of _more_. Just like that, it’s taking root inside her, struggling to displace that other tight and tangled thing. But she finds herself wondering if she’s only replacing one parasite with another, and _oh_ , she wants Jaime, she _does_ , wants him more than anything in the world, but what if wanting him turns him into—

“You don’t know that,” she tells him. “That it’ll always be better.”

“No. I don’t.” He sighs. “I—I just want you beside me when I wake up in the mornings. Is that so bad?”

It isn’t. It sounds wonderful—fantasy given form. Perhaps she’d lost that golden afternoon forever, but what if there are golden mornings to look forward to? Or blue ones, if they wake early enough, or cloudy grey? No, not now, she won’t let her armour protect her now, she wants to dream of mornings with Jaime at least for a little while longer, dream of kissing him awake; and then she does kiss him, this Jaime, flesh-and-blood and kneeling before her still. She brings her hands to his cheeks and kisses him while thinking of gold and blue and grey mornings, fantasy given form and that form is Jaime, Jaime and her together. Tangled up in each other.

This is how she’ll fend it off, that thing in her chest. She’ll kiss Jaime as she walks them to his bedroom, as they collapse onto his bed. She keeps kissing him for the next two hours, nothing more than kissing and murmurs between kisses, because this is how she’ll fight. She’ll seize all the good parts and knot them inside her so she won’t forget that they’ve happened and will happen again, until they are tight and tangled too, tangled up in Jaime who’ll be tangled up in her. She’d screwed up already, and hurt both of them without meaning to, but they will wake up each morning with a kiss and it’ll be _better_.

They’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a kiss, and it’ll be better.

She wants so much to believe it.

 _Stay with me tonight. And the day after, and the day after that. Stay_ , Jaime repeats without saying a word, offering her a t-shirt and pyjama pants from his closet. He doesn’t know she only wears a t-shirt to bed, she realises. She takes the t-shirt from him, then lets her hand hover over the pants for a second before retracting it. There’s no point in modesty, not with Jaime.

“Just a t-shirt?” Jaime smirks. “Sexy.”

“Shut up.” She starts unbuttoning her shirt. “I get warm.”

“Does that mean we can’t… cuddle?”

She hears how Jaime stumbles over the word—she would have stumbled too—and tilts her head to the side. “I don’t know,” she answers, sincerely. “I’ve never tried.”

They do cuddle—Brienne in Jaime’s t-shirt and her panties, and Jaime in just the pyjama pants she’d rejected—and drift off to sleep together. She really does get warm in the night, and at some point she has to wind her way out of Jaime’s arms and fling the covers off her, but when she wakes—

it’s better.

She can still feel that thing in her chest, tight and tangled, but it’s _better_. Better because she’d knotted all those kisses alongside it, because she is still in Jaime’s bed while the sun is just rising, because he’d asked her to stay and she had. She closes her eyes again, wants to savour this feeling, but moments later Jaime is shifting towards her, and slipping a hand beneath her shirt to rest on her tummy, and putting his lips to her neck, and this is all fine except now his hand is moving downwards, inching past her waistband, and alright, she needs to put a stop to this.

“Jaime.”

“Good morning,” he says into her neck. She’s never heard two words as wonderful, and in a more wonderful voice.

“What are you doing?” she asks, though she’s sure she knows the answer.

“Waking you up,” he replies. “It’s a special service that comes with staying the night.”

She rolls her eyes though he can’t see it. “What time is it?”

“Don’t know.” He kisses her neck again, and slips his hand further down. “Don’t care.”

“Mm—” No, she hadn’t meant to say _mm_ , she’d meant to say— “I need to get home.”

She hasn’t forgotten her deadline at noon. She doesn’t forget these things. Her priorities had simply shifted since she’d stepped into Jaime’s apartment last night. She has a first draft written anyway, and it needs work, but she’d decided that it’s work she could do after spending the night with Jaime.

He pulls his hand back. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not _leaving_ —”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” he grumbles.

“Fine.” She twists to face him, and places a hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry. I have a deadline at noon, and all I have is a very rough draft.”

“Use my computer,” he suggests. “Stay here. I can help you.”

“All my files are on my laptop. And you _won’t_ be very helpful.”

“Why not? We work well together.”

“That was _before_ we started sleeping together. You’ll distract me, and you know it.”

“At least let me—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

She looks down to where his hand is slipping into her panties again. “Does it have to do with that?”

“… Maybe.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” She wraps a hand around his wrist, and lifts his hand out of her underwear. “I swear.”

“How?”

She bites her lip as she thinks, then blushes. She’d thought he’d never see the inside of her apartment, but—

“Maybe you could come over later,” she says quietly. “For lunch.”

“Really?” Jaime brightens. “You’re okay with that?”

“Yeah,” she smiles. “I think so. There’s a café down the street from me that serves breakfast all day on weekends. It’s pretty good.”

“Sounds like a date.”

Her cheeks burn. “I suppose it does.”

“And… after lunch?”

She kisses him on the nose—a kiss to make it better—then climbs out of his bed. “Like I said… you can come over.”

She is running now, in a way, but she won’t run from that.

She can feel Jaime’s eyes on her as she walks across the room, to where she’d hung her clothes over the back of a chair. She pulls his t-shirt up over her head, and feels a chill run down her spine as Jaime groans.

“Gods, you’re killing me. You’re practically naked in my room and you’re just going to _leave_.”

“I’m sorry.” She slips her arms into her bra straps, and hooks the clasps behind her. “I promise I’m all yours after twelve.”

“Until…?”

She pauses, her shirt in her hand. “Are you… asking if you can stay over?”

“I might be.”

She nods slowly as she puts on her shirt. The thought brings a little bit of panic—a little bit of fear, and confusion, and dread along with it—but it’s just a little bit, and there are other things, _people_ , to be tangled up in now.

“Alright,” she says. “You can stay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I… I want you to.”

“Good,” he grins. “I’d like that.”

When she’s all dressed, she heads back over to the bed. Jaime pouts at her, and she laughs, and leans down to give him a long kiss to make it better. “See you later,” she whispers, when they break apart. “I’ll text you the address.”

Then, she leaves. Call it running—she was the one who’d decided to talk to him last night, knowing she has a deadline today at noon—or call it a reprieve, or call it ridiculous when she could be spending her morning with Jaime. Still, she’d stayed the night. She’d let herself get tangled up in him. It hadn’t matched the happiness of that golden afternoon—there had been something special about that day, something delirious in the way they’d enjoyed each other—but it’s _better_. It feels better than anything she’s ever done with Jaime.

When she steps out into the street, and looks up at the cloudless morning sky, she thinks there’ll be another golden afternoon today. It’ll be a golden evening too, and a golden morning tomorrow, and hells, it’ll be a golden night in between. Call it silly, but it’ll be golden because she’ll have Jaime. She’ll have Jaime in her home—and her bed—for the very first time.

This feels like changing the parameters.

This feels like _I want you closer to me_.

This feels like strings.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I’m flipping the POV of an existing fic, so I hope it worked for you! I have ideas for a sequel planned in a 5+1 structure too, but we’ll see if I ever get to finishing it.
> 
> Thanks to [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde) and [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat) for the handholding as always!


End file.
